Athletics world champion Winfred Yavi spoke with GDN Media and shared her thoughts on the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics, where she will be one of the kingdom’s top medal hopefuls. This is the latest in our series of articles featuring Bahrain’s participants at this summer’s Olympic Games.
ATHLETICS – ALL eyes will be on Bahrain’s world champion Winfred Yavi at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The 24-year-old is highly touted as being one of the kingdom’s best hopes at striking gold in The Games of the XXXIII Olympiad. She is greatly looking forward to the challenge, and is gearing up to take the Stade de France by storm in the women’s 3,000 metres steeplechase.
“It’s incredible!” Yavi told the GDN in an exclusive interview about representing Bahrain for a second straight Olympics. “The Olympic Games are one of the biggest arenas in the world, and it is a proud moment for me.”
Yavi made her Olympic debut in Tokyo 2021, where she booked her place in the steeplechase final and finished a respectable 10th as she was just breaking into stardom in international track and field.
Three years on – and with multiple global accolades already tucked under her belt – she heads into her event as one of the favourites to climb the podium, if not capture the Olympic crown.
“The best athletes in the world are at the Olympic Games,” she highlighted. “You have to prepare well.”
Yavi sent out a stern warning to her rivals earlier this month with a sensational victory at the Paris Diamond League meeting – one of the biggest one-day competitions on the World Athletics circuit, which featured many of the sport’s biggest stars. Yavi won the steeplechase convincingly, clocking a time of nine minutes 03.68 seconds – far from her personal best but still a strong indicator of her fine form and also the fifth-fastest in the steeplechase so far this year.
“My coach, team, and I prepared specifically for Paris; it is a special location for us,” said Yavi, who triumphed in the 2022 edition of the meeting with what is now the second-fastest time of her career of 8:56.55. “We are glad we came out with the win.”
While Yavi is confident in her ability to step it up on the grandest stage, she is taking things one step at a time – “trusting the process”, as she says, with the days continuing to count down to the year’s most highly anticipated sporting spectacle.
“Every single race has its own significance,” Yavi said. “The team has worked well with me, and I am trusting the process.”
Heading into this Olympic year, Yavi ended 2023 on a high, conquering the steeplechase in an historic season. She not only bagged her event’s gold medal at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, but followed it up with her first-ever Diamond Trophy after winning the Diamond League Final in Eugene, Oregon, in the US, with a blistering personal best of 8:50.66.
That mark is an Asian and Bahrain record and is the second-fastest time ever in women’s 3,000m steeplechase history, beaten only by the world record of 8:44.32, held by Beatrice Chepkoech of Kenya since 2018.
Furthermore, Yavi won double gold at the Hangzhou Asian Games in China in both the steeplechase and the women’s 1,500m. She set a new Asiad record of 9:18.28 en route to her steeplechase win, which followed another gold medal-winning performance for Bahrain at the Arab Games in Algeria earlier in the year.
Yavi is not banking on her past successes as she sets her sights on glory in Paris, and knows that she will be facing plenty of stiff competition from her fiercest rivals – some of whom include Chepkoech and her fellow-Kenyans Jackline Chepkoech and Faith Cherotich, along with defending Olympic champion Peruth Chemutai of Uganda.
“I have a lot of respect for each and every competitor who has qualified for the Olympic Games,” Yavi said. “My team and I are focusing on getting ready.
“It is an honour to have a team and a coach who I can collaboratively work together with. I am looking forward to the Olympic Games, and I am trusting the process.”
Yavi has a special message of appreciation for her fans.
“I am extremely grateful to everyone in Bahrain and my fans, fondly referred to as #TeamYavi,” she said. “I believe it’s not been about one event – they have consistently been there, cheering through. The support is the wings that allow me to ‘keep moving’.
“#TeamYavi, never forget to ‘keep moving’!”
At Paris 2024, Yavi is aiming to follow in the footsteps of fellow-Bahraini steeplechaser Ruth Jebet, who clinched the Olympic title in Rio 2016. That was the second-ever gold medal – and fourth overall – ever won by Bahrain at the Olympic Games.
Now-retired Maryam Yusuf Jamal captured the kingdom’s first-ever Olympic medal – and first-ever Olympic gold – in the women’s 1,500m at London 2012. She had originally taken third place, but was later promoted to first after the two athletes who finished before her were stripped of their medals for doping offences. Maryam’s gold was also the maiden Olympic medal won by a woman athlete from the Gulf states.
Then, joining Ruth as a medallist in Rio was Eunice Kirwa, who won silver in the women’s marathon. In Tokyo, Kalkidan Gezahegne captured silver in the women’s 10,000m.
Athletics is one of five sports Bahrain are taking part in at the upcoming Olympics. The others are judo, wrestling, swimming, and weightlifting.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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